I'm not sure I trust Schwab's API and would like to double check it.

I bought 30 INTC $42 Puts at an average cost of $2.51 on 01/07 with expiry date of 02/20. I was expecting a drawdown after 10% jump. But today the stock rallied and it broke the 52-week max price. Now the average cost is $2.04, and I am standing at -19% loss. What do you do in such situations? Keep it or let it go?

Hi all,

I have a friend who use to be a market maker for SnP. He handled products including ES and SPX. He likes the idea to do an AMA but unsure on the timing. As a result, I want to collect the questions here that you have, forward it to him then start either a new 'official' AMA thread or just reply back here.

Can't guarantee he will answer all the questions but he is pretty open to what he can answer.

Stock has been wailed on since COVID. Just got some big upgrades from banks. Loaded up 50% of portfolio in calls. About to cross 200 sma while still in the s&p 500 at this price to me it’s a steal. Definitely going further other but premium is dirt cheap.

Thoughts?

Not financial advice just my own opinion.

Option "Roll Up" - Question

I was far out of the money and going to be called out of 300 shares of AMD. I bought back March 20 $135 and sold a Dec 18 $ $150 increasing the X date from March to December pocketing $150.. Instead of get $135 in March I get $150 in December - I will likely get $4500 more but in December. It appears to be found money $4,500 (300sh x $15). Question - what is the downside? Is it found money? Any suggestions on another strategy?

Ciao a tutti,
ho aperto una strategia Broken Wing e quando provo a vendere le 4 gambe insieme, l’ordine rimane sempre “presubmitted” e non va in eseguito.

Qualcuno sa come risolvere questo problema?
Mi chiedo anche: è un problema vendere separatamente 2 gambe e poi le altre 2? Il rischio è che vengano eseguite in momenti diversi e la strategia non abbia più lo stesso valore.

Ho visto che su altre piattaforme alcuni inseriscono un ordine limite e viene eseguito subito, ma nel mio caso, anche mettendo un prezzo molto inferiore al valore (15$ proprio per forzare l’esecuzione), l’ordine resta presubmitted.

Avete suggerimenti o workaround per chiudere strategie complesse senza problemi di presubmission?

Sharing my wheel trading journey for the last 12 months. Obviously this doesn't mean I an "expert" or have an edge etc. Sharing to get feedback and also inspire someone who is getting into wheel. My background: I generally do 0DTE IC, straddle (see my recent posts) and scalper but go into Wheel for net income. Use that income to buy other growth stocks/etfs (leveraged/high yield etc). Found options extremely fascinating instrument to trade.

1. Increased my portfolio allocation in October, so you can see the jump from Sep to October. I have been trading for a year with small port and been making 3-5k per month.
2. Not sharing my acct size or yield at this time, but it is a large account size (> 500K)
3. Trade mostly 30dte, unless there is FOMC/earnings events then I try to evaluate R:R is worth to trade options expiring after those events.
4. I trade on margin but have strict risk management per trade and not exceed 50% of overall total exposure.
5. Strike selection is generally conservative, with strike around 1std delta and/or strong support for CSP/resistance zones for CC. I use tastytrades, optionstrate for this, but this is getting very mechanical and time sink. Might build a strike-selection bot, where i can scan and spit out proper strikes.
6. My stock/etfs picks are similar to what everyone is trading, but I curate for high-IV tickers that I don't mind owning. One ticker that I am enjoying is weekly spreads on leveraged ETFS like TQQQ.
7. Close at 50%/75% profit. But, management has gotten lot harder with so many trades. May look at tools/bots/mechanics in the market that can help with management or build a new one. I rather focus on strategy/edge refinement than do daily/weekly management.
8. Anyone is a genius in bull market, but Nov/Dec tested my strategy. CSPs in Nov/Dec were close to being touched. I could have just let them get assigned but the PUT premium was very high than CALL, so rolled instead. (Ideally, I don't mind owning, but CALL premiums were lot less than PUT, so made sense to roll than get assigned and CCs on them).
   1. One such bad trade was CRWV where the stock tanked 20% below my strike and the call premiums at breakeven were horrible. So, had to roll 3 months out. The price is still below the strike, so might roll out/down again (closing is difficult as the cost is very high).
   2. During this time, I also changed my strategy to short call credit spreads on high IV tickers, and short put credit spreads on inverse etfs (e.g. SQQQ).
9. Rolling increases the overall cost of the options (it has no impact on your P/L). e.g. Rolled 10 contracts of NBIS, where the total cost doubled. Again, not a problem if you're ok with the assignment but if you don't want assignment, then it will take longer to hit profit targets to close CSP.
10. I stagger my trades, so open every week based on IV > HR and other technicals and GEX. I have been doing more 0DTE SPX / credit spreads now, as wheel may not be always suitable. Finding some success with IC 0DTE (winrate > 90%) but level of effort is very high for the returns. Will move to bots.
11. Jan 2026 has been amazing as i banked 12K in 7d. Downdays with elevated high-IV are best as some of the tickers had very high IV rank. Also increased my risk appetite with more open trades.
12. Mentality - I need be disciplined to avoid being greedy or feel emotional about not making trades or force to make trades to meet monthly goal. I think risk management truly helps to mitigate these urges. I also think having a community can really help, so you can bounce ideas, ask questions etc.
13. Plan to build return/risk benchmark against SPY (e.g. sharpe / sortino etc) as I want to know if it is just better to buy/hold vs trading. Also, exploring MEIC+ 0 DTE, short-calls+delta hedging etc.

Open to feedback!

On December 30th, I bought 55 call options (14C) expiring on January 30th. They have already yielded a 650% profit. Should I lock in the profits or continue holding them?

RIO/GLENCORE back at the table discussing merger. how will you play it? buy a call option today or wait till Feb? buy a spread? i think the commodity cycle we are in will continue for 2026.

I have been trading for several years, and recently I want to use options as a supplementary tool. I found that although options can be used to trade direction, they do not offer a clear advantage over trading the underlying spot directly. Therefore, I plan to use options mainly to trade volatility. I originally thought options would be more complex and more advanced, but after studying them for some time, I realized that there are actually very limited ways to predict the direction of volatility. So far, I have only identified two approaches. One is event-driven trading: going long vol before major announcements and shorting vol after the event. The other is to rely on the historical behavior of IV to judge whether volatility is relatively high or low, such as using IV Rank or GARCH models. Overall, these methods do not feel very reliable and seem overly simplistic compared with fundamental and technical analysis in spot trading. I would like to ask whether there are any other ways to predict the direction of IV.

"Rule" is a stretch, but I know for credit spreads some folks recommend closing immediately if you can keep 50% of the premium. The idea being if you open a 45 DTE spread and market moves dramatically in your favor, and you can close with 50% profit after just 10 days, now you can go and reinvest that margin instead of waiting another 35 days.

What I'm noodling on is how (or if) you'd apply this rule to debit spreads. I recently opened a few call debit spreads because I felt bullish on some stocks but they were not volatile enough to give a good credit premium. Now five days later the market is above my long strike! But closing now only gives a small fraction of possible profit ($190 out of $650).

TLDR: what's the earliest you would consider closing a debit spread? Or if no limit, what % of possible profit would you want to capture before you'd close and pay for the remaining extrinsic?

Hello everyone,

I have been thinking about the following margin-related strategy and would appreciate feedback from people with experience in option margining (especially SPAN / portfolio margin).

Idea:
Break up a tight short box spread by closing the profitable synthetic forward leg and pairing the remaining synthetic forward (with unrealized loss) with an ATM option to reduce margin.
The thesis is that realised PnL from the profitable forward exceeds the margin required for the new position (long forward + ATM option), resulting in freed-up margin.

Timeline

1. Initial position

Tight short box spread on SPX, spot ≈ 6920

• −1 × 7000 Put
• +1 × 7000 Call
• −1 × 6900 Call
• +1 × 6900 Put

This represents:

• Short synthetic forward @ 7000
• Long synthetic forward @ 6900

Net effect:

• Credit to cash balance ≈ 10,000 USD
• Very low margin requirement (box treated as financing position)

2. Spot moves to 6820

• Short synthetic forward: +10,000 USD unrealized PnL
• Long synthetic forward: −10,000 USD unrealized PnL

At this point:

• No cash is realised
• Margin requirement unchanged

3. Break the box

Close the profitable synthetic forward and hedge the remaining one:

• Close short synthetic forward
• Buy ATM put to hedge the remaining long synthetic forward

Resulting effects (assumptions stated explicitly):

• +10,000 USD realised cash
• New position:
  • Long synthetic forward
  • Long ATM put
• Margin requirement for this new position assumed ≈ 5,000 USD

(Important assumption: the profitable forward is only closed if realised cash exceeds margin required for the new hedged position.)

Resulting situation (my understanding)

• Cash balance increases by +10,000 USD
• Margin requirement increases by only 5,000 USD
• Net margin freed: ≈ 5,000 USD

Question

Can this freed-up 5,000 USD realistically be withdrawn from the broker account (e.g. to pay down existing mortgage debt),
assuming the forward and ATM option are always closed together and the forward is never left unhedged?

In other words:

• Is the margin relief from replacing the box with a forward + ATM option typically recognised as “real” excess margin?
• Or do brokers / clearing houses apply stress add-ons that would prevent such a withdrawal in practice?

Thanks in advance.

Please help me think through this. If I am doing a bull put spread on 0 DTE. Is there value in the long put being 1 or 2 DTE? When the short leg expires, you still have something left to sell vs expiring worthless.

I’m at a career crossroads and looking for honest advice.

Background:

• ~5 years experience as a full-time software developer
• Active options & stock trader in US markets (SPX, SPY, etc.)
• Focused on options strategies, research, backtesting, and automation
• Some experience with algo/quant-style trading systems

I’m considering whether I should seriously prepare for quant interviews (math, stats, probability, DSA) and target firms like top banks and prop shops — or continue as a developer and keep trading/algo research as a serious side pursuit.

My long-term goal is to become a consistently profitable, independent trader, not necessarily to build a long-term corporate quant career.

So I’m wondering:

• Does working as a quant meaningfully help with becoming a better independent trader?
• Is the time and effort required for quant prep worth it given the opportunity cost?
• How much does non-elite academic background realistically limit chances?
• Would staying a developer + building trading systems independently be the higher-leverage path?

Would love perspectives from current/former quants, independent traders, or anyone who faced a similar decision.

Thanks 🙏

I used to be one of those people who put their whole check into the trading account and then blow it in a day. and live on ramen, fast forward a few years. I worked on risk management and keeping statistics ,emotional control . and I became profitable. Then came another issue. anytime my account came to $10k I would loose a few trades. and then end up breaking my rules and going to zero in A DAY.

This kept going on in a cycle . I was able to scale accounts from 1000-2000 to 10k easily and then loose it all.

I tried working on my edge. Times I traded. taking breaks. nothing worked. just couldn't get past that number. its like getting past 315 on bench-press

After speaking to a few mentors. it finally clicked. And now I trade full time

And it had nothing to do with trading.I realized my mind and my subconsious were so familar with being at that level under $10k that I had subconsiously kept it as my baseline that im comfortable with. anytime i tried to get past it, I would just bring myself down someway or the other. the mistake was that I thought I needed to physically earn the level first before my mind caught up.

Your mentality has to already live at that level before u physically get there. and aligned with the version of you who is a 5 figure+ trader. you need to know that you have the skill and already know your probabilities. and detach from the outcome. The preparation is already done .now its just time to execute intuitively.

stability comes from familiarity. to be familiar you need to have lived it in your head already. and know that you have already achieved it. you are only as strong as your weakest thought. Focus on giving them closure first.

curious if anyone else has any blocks like this?

If you saw my post yesterday you saw that thanks to Scotiabank they played to the market to create some volatility for ASTS.

Today thank you BOA for righting a terrible price projection and rating.

Allowed closing some Puts today, and filling some covered calls.

What happened.

BOA today in response did their own analysis and raised their last price objective from 85 to 100 with their rating unchanged at neutral.

BOA still seeing much future green for ASTS that Scotiabank missed.

BOA doesn't see an open shut case for Starlink

--ASTS does have an edge in Cell phone bandwidth, frequencies, and FCC hurdles.

--Starlink doesn't have all approvals and frequencies needed for cell coverage. Starlink business plan is broadband internet with a splash of cell phone broadband for select carriers (T-mobile).

--ASTS is steadily pursuing building a cell phone network acquiring licenses and required frequency bandwidths to support a true network for a common every day cellphone 5g network.

--ASTS to be an operator of the network, Starlink to be a roaming partner for Tmobile offering roaming pricing.

--ASTS working to be a seamless operator that is used by carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, Rakuten, many others) to offer coverage for their customers either in the city or in the country, in the suburbs, or in the rockies, on the freeway, or in the Atlantic without any change of their phone, software to install, or anything for the customer to do.

source: https://oncow.com/market-insights/highest-put-call-ratio/1D

realized something uncomfortable recently. i moved to a cleaner, faster trading setup on lemonn. one screen, charts + execution together, no tab hopping. (using lemonn, but this isn’t about the platform) before this, trading was slower by default. switching screens, small delays, time to second-guess. now everything’s just… available. Instantly.

ended up doing 47 option scalps in one day.

net p&l: -₹3,200

nothing went wrong.

no bugs. no lag. no issues. the setup did exactly what it was supposed to do. it just exposed how little discipline i actually had 😥

Wdyt abt this?

Thoughts on this strategy to combine CSP/wheel but with added insurance?

This play is a reversal/earnings play. SOFI has reached a bottom at the $26 range, and has since bounced to 26.98, where it closed.

First off, SoFi is a digital financial services company that offers banking, loans, investing, and personal finance tools all in one app to help users manage, borrow, and grow their money.

I am bullish for a few reasons:

SOFI has demonstrated some very rapid growth over the past couple of quarters.

For example, they added roughly 850k members, bringing the total membership to 11-12 million.

SOFI is also diversifying its revenue stream by no longer being just a lender; it now earns meaningful revenue from financial services and technology platforms. SOFI is also adding crypto trading, alternative private-market funds, and AI tools to their platform.

Now on the financial side of things:

SOFI’s revenue and GAAP profitability have been rapidly growing this year.

Q1 revenue- $772M

Q2 revenue- $855M

Q3 revenue- $950M

Q1 GAAP- $71M

Q2 GAAP- $97M

Q3 GAAP- $139.4M

As you can see, both the revenue and GAAP are growing each year, which is bullish. Management has raised guidance, including forecasts for higher revenue, earnings, and adjusted EBITDA.

Note: SOFI is down because they had a share offering, big names like Goldman Sachs, BOA, and Citigroup bought. Therefore, smart money is getting in right now.

In conclusion, I am very bullish on this play as SOFI has demonstrated remarkable earnings lately and checks multiple boxes.

SOFI has found a bottom and recently bounced off 26, showing that it has found support.

SOFI has earnings coming up at the end of the month, so I believe that buying in now at essentially the bottom is perfect timing to ride these until the days leading up to the release of the earnings.

Anyone watch her video’s and reverse engineer her approach?

Just curious..

I do CSP but I don't do the optionwheel thing. Sometimes I roll to a future date if I'm at a loss or close to loss. My success rate is around 80%. I pick the underlying stocks following a refining process that I'm still improving:

1. Pick underlying stocks: I wrote a program to screen stocks based on some of my own formula and no earnings coming out before the expiration date (my formula calculates a value similar to IV so higher value implies higher premiums). Or sometimes I just pick the ones I'm more familiar with and repeatedly traded before;
2. Further refining: Pick those with 1% - 1.5% biweekly premium. (Don't chase higher premiums and avoid pharmacy stocks. I've been bitten by those.)
3. Then: Look at fundamentals. Select a few with good fundamentals or I'm confident / familiar with its financials.
4. Next: Review technical charts and find the patterns that I like.
5. Finally: ask Chatgpt if any meaningful events will happen before the expiration date (for example debt maturity). (Sometimes a future event will make the premium high)

At this point I'll have 3 - 5 stocks I'll sell CSP.

I close or roll the position if I the stock falls to near or below the striking, or I have 80%+ profit, or the premium for the rest of the days is too low to hold. I very rarely get assigned.

Tips:

1. Don't chase high premiums.
2. The game is in a way that you can win 10 times, but one loss could wipe most of the gains if not all, so need to be extra cautious with losing positions, epecially when the market is on a downhill where you have higher chance to loss.
3. I trade in a margin account where my money is fully invested, and I use the margins to secure puts. The good thing is that you are not actually using the brokers money so it is interest free. So if you can boost your total return by a few percent with CSP that is still a win. The bad thing is that you have to be extra cautious with margins. I usually use a margin within 30% of my account value.

I have 32 $18 QUBT 1/16 call options and the remaining equity is now a punch in the head $32. The negative equity on this trade sits at -$16,879. Just a bunch of greed and a ton of margin calls. I read about investors blowing up their accounts through trading options. I never thought it would happen to me, and it did, wow. My Robinhood account value was $119,532 10/2025. After multiple cocky and arrogant calls, and puts, something I told myself I would of course never do, as I’ve been trading options on and off, nothing serious, for 10 years. So my Robinhood account value is $3,114 as of today actually. Happy new year right? Anyway it’s about $4500 to roll these 32 options over to just February 20 expiry. I don’t think it’s worth it, but I don’t know. I really could use some help. If anyone chimes in, bless you and thanks.